potter's clay

American  

noun

1. a clay, suitably plastic and free of iron and other impurities, for use by potters.

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Etymology

Origin of potter's clay

First recorded in 1610–20

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

potter's clay

Nietzsche was the Marx of the right, the original culture warrior who believed that the future belongs to those with the courage to face the nihilism of the present and mold it like potter’s clay.

From New York Times ● Nov. 20, 2018

Fresh masa has a thicker consistency, more like potter’s clay, and it smells like slightly fermented corn syrup, especially if it sits out for 24 hours before you use it.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 13, 2015

It does not seem to have occurred to him to regard his theme in the light of potter’s clay.

From The Battaile of Agincourt by Richard Garnett

Before washing them, take out grease, with a paste, made of potter's clay, ox-gall, and water.

From A Treatise on Domestic Economy For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School by Catharine Esther Beecher

It was, probably, at times, obtained from recent alluvial deposits of the bayous—the sediment of overflows—as was the potter's clay of the Nile.

From Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 361-436 by William Henry Holmes